"We just got China to renew or to begin again the human rights dialogue that had been in limbo for some time," Rice told reporters.

In the State Department's annual report on human rights released Tuesday, China was dropped from the list of the world's worst human rights violators, but was classified as an authoritarian country undergoing economic reform and rapid social change that has "not undertaken democratic political reform."

"The only purpose here was to call out that there are some countries that are so closed, the Burmas (Myanmars) of the world, that you have a different kind of problem when you have a country that is in many ways completely closed off to the world," Rice said, with the Beijing Olympic Games approaching in a few months' time.

"But it is by no means suggesting that there is not significant emphasis on human right problems in China."

Rice added: "If you read the report on China, it is quite harsh, and properly so, about human rights problems in China," she said.

The report stressed that China's "overall human rights record remained poor" in 2007, citing tightened controls on religious freedom against Buddhists in Tibet and in Muslims in northwestern Xinjiang.

"The government also continued to monitor, harass, detain, arrest, and imprison activists, writers, journalists, and defense lawyers and their families, many of whom were seeking to exercise their rights under the law."

Although there had been some progress in the legal system, "efforts to reform or abolish the reeducation-through-labor system remained stalled," it said.

China had been fingered as one of the worst violators in the Department's 2006 and 2005 reports.

earlier related report
Tibetan monks tear-gassed in second day of protests
Chinese police fired tear gas to disperse a second day of protests in the Tibetan capital Lhasa by hundreds of Buddhist monks demanding the region's independence, Radio Free Asia reported Wednesday.

Up to 600 monks marched from their monastery to police headquarters Tuesday to demand the release of monks detained a day earlier after a protest marking the anniversary of a 1959 Tibetan uprising that was crushed by China, it said.

The unrest added to recent developments, including protests by Tibetans in neighbouring India and Nepal, that have thrust China's control of the Himalayan region back into the spotlight just months before it hosts the Olympic Games.

Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama also on Monday spoke out about what he said were China's "gross" human rights abuses in his homeland.

Some of the marchers in Lhasa on Tuesday shouted slogans such as "Free our people" and "We want an independent Tibet," according to Radio Free Asia, a US-funded broadcaster that broke the news of the initial protests on Monday.

On arrival at police headquarters, they were confronted by "a couple of thousand" armed police officers, who fired tear gas to break up the gathering, Radio Free Asia said, quoting witnesses.

The report did not mention whether any monks were detained in the confrontation.

An officer with the Public Security Bureau in Lhasa denied knowledge of any incident when contacted by AFP by phone on Wednesday.

Radio Free Asia initially reported that up to 300 monks had participated in Monday's demonstration and that as many as 60 were arrested.

A foreign ministry spokesman later confirmed that local police had quashed the Monday protest and that some arrests had been made, but did not say how many.

Citing a Tibetan government official, China's state-run Xinhua news agency also said 300 monks had demonstrated on Monday, although there were no reports about Tuesday's apparent unrest.

The demonstrations coincided with the 49th anniversary of the crushing of a Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule by the People's Liberation Army. Exiled Tibetans staged high-profile protests around the world to mark the day.

Chinese troops killed tens of thousands of Tibetans as they quashed the 1959 uprising, according to the Tibetan government-in-exile's website.

The Dalai Lama fled his homeland following the uprising.

China's rule of Tibet began in 1951, a year after sending troops in to "liberate" the region, and Beijing continues to denounce the Dalai Lama for what it says are his efforts to seek independence for his homeland.

About 100 exiled Tibetan activists began a march on Monday from India to the Tibetan border to highlight what they say are serious human rights violations in their Himalayan homeland.

Free-Tibet groups have vowed a series of similar protests worldwide, and possibly inside China, ahead of the Olympics.

One potentially tempting target for activists is Mount Everest in early May, as that is when China intends to take the Olympic torch up through Tibet and to the peak of the world's highest mountain.

China on Wednesday denied a report on a prominent mountaineering website that it had issued a ban on people trying to climb Everest from Tibet during that period.

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